


Character Analysis

by HannaM



Category: Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9048421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannaM/pseuds/HannaM
Summary: The thing is, Sigrid is, objectively, not a nice person. Which is part of what makes her such an interesting and compelling character to watch, but from a distance, which is the crucial part. Up close her sharp edges start to cut too close to the bone.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scioscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/gifts).



Valentine is not Sigrid.  
  
Yeah, she's seen the movie. She's read the play, even, which most people never bothered to do. She's never had a conversation with Wilhelm Melchior about it, but she's sure that's the way he would've wanted most people to approach it. The text isn't alive until actors step in and inhabit the roles, after all. Interpretation is in the eye of the beholder.  
  
Maria isn't Sigrid either, though she wishes she was. Val sort of gets it. She's an actor, an honest deeply emotional actor, and the role meant a lot to her at a pivotal moment in her life, so sure, lines get kind of blurry. Val's seen it happen a lot.  
  
The thing is, Sigrid is, objectively, not a nice person. Which is part of what makes her such an interesting and compelling character to watch, but from a distance, which is the crucial part. Up close her sharp edges start to cut too close to the bone.  
  
Maria's not like that, normally. Maria has compassion and strength and the wisdom of years of experience Sigrid's never going to have, because Sigrid can't ever grow up, being a fictional character. Sigrid is doomed to always be cruel and careless, playing games with other people's lives, and maybe that's her tragedy, in a way. Sigrid's never going to feel what it's like to fail, to be made a fool of by other people, to be rejected herself. Sigrid can't change, because Wilhelm never did write that sequel.  
  
Maria has changed, Val thinks for the better. But going back to Maloja Snake like this, it's like she's trying to undo everything, trying desperately to use Val before Val can lose her, because she's afraid if she's not Sigrid that makes her Helena, and Helena disappears.  
  
Maria's never going to disappear, because she's a celebrity in a world obsessed with glamor, and because whether she realizes it or not she draws people in, makes people want to know her, intimately.  
  
Maybe that's her tragedy, not being able to disappear. Maria Enders could like, shave her head, move to a deserted island and live like a hermit with no Wifi and there would still be articles being written about her, and her as Sigrid. It's hard to reinvent yourself when the world decided who you were when you were a teenager.

That's part of why Val thought it would be good for her to do the play again as Helena, to see things from another angle. But Helena is still in love with Sigrid, so... maybe she didn't think it through that well.

Sometimes Maria accuses her of taking Helena's side out of contrariness, purely to spite and challenge Maria and her assumptions. Which is frustrating, because that's not the way Val works. Maria _knows_ that. It's how she got the job.

She likes Helena because she's the character the audience gets to see struggling and suffering, the one who goes through a journey. Sigrid is the driving force, but Val's always thought it should be Helena's story. With a charismatic actress that the audience already has affection for, why shouldn't it be?

And Val liked the way Klaus pitched it, the idea that maybe Sigrid grows up to be Helena, maybe the cycle keeps going. It's not hopeful, exactly, but it's interesting, to think that maybe Helena disappears into Sigrid.

But up here in the mountains there's no director, and it feels like Maria listens to Val less and less. She's got Sigrid and Helena fighting inside her, and she keeps projecting one or the other onto Val, which is fucking definitely not in Val's job description.

Val is not Sigrid.

If she had to choose, she'd rather be Helena, weak but loving, but Val's not Helena either.

She's Val. And she doesn't want to disappear.


End file.
